![]() Where the Battle of Atlantic casualties are buried in Co. If you can provide additional information on Mayo and the Battle of the Atlantic, please contact me through the Contact Page. The book also brought to light how the authorities and local communities coped with the scale of the human tragedy taking place in the Atlantic, evident in the bodies that were washed ashore along our western seaboard from 1940 to 1945. The book details the work of the Coastwatching Service during WW2 and the role of the Look Out Posts around our coast that played such an important role in protecting Irish neutrality by providing daily tactical and strategic information to Irish military intelligence about the movements of belligerent ships, warplanes, and U-boats off our coast. Michael Kennedy’s, Guarding Neutral Ireland: the Coast Watching Service and Military Intelligence, 1939-1945 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008), is a monumental body of research, the book should be the starting point for those interested in Ireland and the Battle of the Atlantic. This article also acknowledges the authoritative and groundbreaking work of others, most notably Michael Kennedy, Executive Editor, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, Royal Irish Academy (RIA). ![]() My aim in writing this article is to remember the bravery of not just those who were directly involved in the war at sea, but also Mayo’s coastal communities, coastwatchers and gardai who as innocent bystanders had to deal with the terrible aftermath of battle. Since writing this article the Russian invasion of Ukraine has given the sacrifice of the WW2 generation a new resonance as we see the bravery of the young Ukrainian men and women of today fighting and dying for their freedom against the tyranny of Putin. Our conversation was all too brief, but sometimes on my walks around Erris Head or Benwee Head, I have thought of this brave RAF pilot, one of so many British and Irish airmen, sailors and soldiers who risked their lives so that we could all be free of the evils of totalitarianism. He told me how after the war he went back to university in Liverpool to qualify in Aeronautical Engineering, and later went to work in the United States for the famous magnate, Howard Hughes, in his aircraft company. A perfect English gentleman, he was delighted to meet this Mayo man on a brief holiday in the English city of Bath. My lifelong interest in the Battle of the Atlantic was piqued many years ago when I met one of the RAF seaplane pilots who flew out of Castle Archdale on Lough Erne during WW2 on missions protecting incoming convoys that took him over the North Mayo coast its spectacular sea cliff scenery he fondly remembered decades later despite the dangers he faced. Only in four cases do historical records provide any evidence that the remains re-interred in Glencree were those of a German national. 58b My research indicates that many of the disinterred were likely to have been British mariners the final twist of fate in their too-short lives resulted in their remains resting in a German war cemetery. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Germany’s war graves commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) disinterred the remains of 18 of the 90 bodies that were washed ashore and buried in Mayo during World War 2. However, after the War, the man’s remains were disinterred by the Volksbund, Germany’s war graves commission, and reinterred in the Glencree German War Cemetery in Co. His remains were buried in Faulmore graveyard within yards of where his body came ashore. The question arises whether it would be possible from British Government records to identify the man after all these years from the information above. It is likely that the man washed ashore near Blacksod was an internee held in Warth Mills where hundreds of Italian, German and Austrian men were interned at the start of the Second World War. The Guardian newspaper in its list of every POW camp in Great Britain during WW2 names three camps numbered 9 – at Warth Mills, Bury, Greater Manchester Kempton Park Camp, Sunbury on Thames and Quorn Camp, Wood Lane, Quorn, (Quorndon), Leicestershire. No.9 Prisoner of War Camp Great Britain.” On the reverse side of this label, the following figures appeared “466.N.” ![]() In the inside pocket of his coat, a cardboard label was found on which was written: The body of the unfortunate man (aged about 55) was dressed in civilian clothes. The file relates to a body washed up at Surgeview, Blacksod, on August 14, 1940, at a time when many bodies from Arandora Star were coming ashore along the Mayo coast. My research for this article has brought to light a number of interesting facts that might otherwise have remained hidden and will hopefully be helpful to historians researching these subjects in the future.Ī document in the National Archives of Ireland provides possible evidence of an Internment/PoW camp in England in the summer of 1940. ![]()
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